As she flew close to the rooftops, Harpy had time to think.

She didn’t actually like having time to think, it’s why she was always moving, stealing, fighting, playing guitar, and she was always doing something.

But now, just using her wings to move her from one place to the next, Harpy could actually think on Cyclops’ words...

“Being born without freedom huh?” Harpy wondered if those words really applied to her?

Yes, Harpy was born inside Tartarus, a child of a violent man of Area eight and a woman hopped up on all sorts of drugs, she was barely cared for at all until age five when both her parents ended up dead because some Chained got pissed at them.

Vassago was eventually hunted down by the Hunter so at least her parent’s killer was dead, and even then, Harpy hadn’t really cared for her parents much considering she was just a nuisance to them.

Harpy had roamed for a quite a while before ending up in Area three, the most morally upright Area around and she had managed to make a life for herself there for a while…

Around her fourteenth birthday, Harpy had, unfortunately, found herself changed into her current form, with her wings, claws and metallic feet that made wearing shoes half pointless.

She wouldn’t be accepted in Area three again, or so she believed… so she ran off to Area one, her newfound instincts as Harpy demanding she steal.

She had barely been Harpy for a month when she was approached by Odysseus and his two strongest followers, Typhon and Echidna…

Harpy had feared for her life, wondering why these dangerous, notorious beings were after her… and then Echidna Synchronized Harpy and Harpy finally knew relief from her urges to take the belongings of others.

Capable of properly controlling and concealing her wings, Harpy wanted to follow Odysseus, the man who could inspire such loyalty from Echidna and Typhon…

And Odysseus accepted her, calling her the ‘freest person in Tartarus’ when he saw her wings.

So hearing Cyclops imply that she did not have freedom… it stung…

It stung because Harpy knew that Cyclops was right.

Harpy was the freest person in Tartarus because she could fly… but she couldn’t leave, just like everyone else.

She was free… compared to almost everyone else.

Everyone in Tartarus had no freedom. They didn’t really have freedom even if they thought they did.

Being reminded of the fact that she had convinced herself to ignore hurt her, so Harpy took the chance to travel away from the person who unwittingly spoke such harmful things.

Harpy wouldn’t be mad at Cyclops though, he didn’t know she was born in Tartarus after all, and he didn’t realize how hurtful his words could be.

It was… what did Odysseus call it again? A ‘Marie Antoinette situation’ was what he called it.

When someone ignorant to the struggles of others accidentally says something hurtful, such as telling someone without an education to just ‘go get a job’ or telling someone who has been poor their entire life to ‘go buy what you need’.

People have different struggles, and so what you might find easy, another person might find to be the greatest hurdle to their path to success.

Acting like their hurdle was easily surpassed hurt the other party, even if you didn’t know it was difficult for them.

So knowing that Cyclops did a ‘Marie Antoinette’ Harpy would leave him alone.

A bit of a side track, but Harpy did learn about the original Marie Antoinette and her ‘let them eat cake’ statement and Harpy found that whole situation a bit sad, given that Marie should have been raised in luxury and unaware that commoners of the time could likely never eat cake in their lifetime, let alone their struggles to eat…

Granted, the story made it sound like Marie was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, her ignorance was what sparked that situation.

“It’s weird that I’m thinking all of this while heading to the library…” the library of Area three was one of many, there were actually libraries all over Tartarus with various issues…

Area two’s was burnt down, Area one’s was empty because the books were all stolen, the picture painted itself.

Area three’s was relatively safe in comparison, and it was the most likely place to find Go, the nerd of the Chimera triplets…

“Hey bitch, you’re drinking all the rum!” Or, Harpy realized, she could find Shi before she got to the library.

Looking into the street, Harpy watched as a woman was tossed out into the street landing face first onto the concrete floor with a wince, the woman’s body forming a perfect scorpion pose while her brown hair flared out due to the impact.

Harpy was glad Cyclops wasn’t with her now, this was way too strange a method for meeting one of the Chimera triplets…

Then again, there was no feasible way for Cyclops to meet the triplets in a normal manner.

Triplets in general seemed absurd, at least in Tartarus. The Hydra triplets were crazy pranksters, but at least they were similar.

The Chimera triplets on the other hand were all very different from one another and mildly insane.

That last bit was actually normal in Tartarus so maybe they were actually sane?

While Harpy was lost in thought, the woman’s legs finally went back onto the floor while she laid spread eagled on the floor, no one going near her thanks to the collar on her neck.

Harpy sighed, dropping down with her wings expanded, keeping her from falling roughly as she touched down, her wings slipping away as she landed.

“Get up Shi, no one thinks you’re knocked out.” The woman twitched, and then stood up very quickly, turning to look at Harpy.

“Harpy! You bitch, long time no see! Still got a lady boner for Odysseus?” Shi was the most vulgar of the Chimera triplets, so Harpy just shrugged off the curses and implications knowing that this was the worst of it.

“Long time no see yourself. And whether I like Odysseus or not isn’t really any of your business Shi.” Harpy said, holding out her hand, Shi slamming her own hand into Harpy’s in a very manly handshake for two women.

“Bullshit you’d hump him into the dirt if you could. But we’re past that talk, what are you doing here?” Shi asked, and Harpy sighed, nodding to the side, implying that they should walk and talk.

“Didn’t you get the message? Odysseus is holding a party for the new Cyclops back at Olympus, he wants us to all travel as a group. Dryad and Manticore are around somewhere too.” Harpy said that last bit with a hand wave, drawing a laugh from Shi.

“Still with the tough girl act huh? I don’t know if we got the message though, I’ve been bar hopping since we ended up here a few months back.” Harpy rolled her eyes, knowing that Shi probably wasn’t even joking.

Shi was an alcoholic on the level of the original Cyclops, which worked out well with her ability as a Chained.

Oddly, unlike the Hydra, the Chimera had different abilities as a Chained for each of them.

This came with the demerit of being unable to do that trick the Hydra triplets did with sending vague sensations, but they made up for it by being more versatile.

Shi, the ‘eldest’ of the Chimera, was the lion head back when they were a Chimera, and her physical ability was on the level of Typhon himself.

Granted, Shi had no weapons and she had much weaker regeneration abilities than Typhon, but she forcefully took the position of ‘eldest’ by power alone.

Go was the next of the Chimera siblings and the goat head, his ability was more in line with a Cybernetic Chained than a Biological one, but his ability was ‘multi-tasking’ at a very efficient level.

Go used that ability to read dozens of books at the same time instead of for fighting most of the time though… Go, like Shi, had high physical abilities, but he’d be lucky if he was considered half as strong as Shi.

Roku, the ‘youngest’ of the siblings was the lizard head, and his ability was a strange combination of secreting flammable sweat and raising his own skins temperature to put his hands on fire in a fight, he was the ‘youngest’ simply because he liked the name Roku. His skin was understandably fire-proof too.

“Drinking until you’re in a stupor huh? Isn’t that difficult?” Harpy asked pointedly, getting a shrug in return from Shi.

The Chimera siblings each had their own vices, in case that wasn’t obvious. Shi had her alcohol, Go had his books, and Roku had sex.

Roku understood very quickly that Harpy would give him an impromptu gender change if Roku tried to smooth talk her.

“Oh, very, but at least it’s possible for me. I kind of feel sorry for Typhon.” Shi said while cracking her neck slightly.

“Ah yeah, that did happen… by the way, Shi, you talk a lot about me and Odysseus, but aren’t you similar with Typhon?” Harpy asked with a pointed look, Shi looking up and away into the sky while clearly whistling in a fake manner.

She was clearly trying to ignore that she did feel some manner of attraction for the strongest Chained in the Pantheon, but it was kind of obvious to Harpy… and Shi was also aware of it.

“Ah, we’re at the library, see, so let’s get Go and find Roku!” Shi tried to weasel her way out of talking about her own unfortunate crush and Harpy just let her do so…

Shi was confident and strong, much like you’d expect from a lion… that was the case until her affection for Typhon was brought into conversation.

Walking up to the library, Harpy and Shi were expecting to have to look around inside to find Go before leaving…

They definitely weren’t expecting to see Go dodging a gigantic robotic metal dog, but Shi and Harpy wouldn’t let that stop them for long.

Shi took the chance to run forward, breaking into a sprint towards the dog, the dog not having seen Shi as it tried to bite at Go, this gave Shi the perfect chance to launch a posture-perfect dropkick at the side of the dog’s skull, caving in the metal and sending the dog stumbling away.

Go, the dirty grey haired member of the triplets, rolled backwards into a standing position from where he was lying just a moment ago, Shi pushing herself up into a standing position as quickly as possible.

“Go, you doing alright little bro?” Shi asked in a shout, already in a kickboxing stance, her brother looking at her with those creepy yellow eyes of his and nodding.

“Of course. We’re lucky that there was only one Hell-hound so far though.” Go pointed out, and Harpy nodded in agreement as her wings unfurled themselves behind her.

Hell-hounds, the main method Tartarus management attacked the Chained who were definitely uniting against them, the two metre tall (at the shoulder) mechanical dog-shaped death machines were a major part of why most Chained were told to always move in a group of two at minimum.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Some, like Harpy, were strong enough to take out a Hell-hound alone and so did not have to travel in groups, but they were dangerous…

“Ah, it seems we have some extras… That would be the Lion Chimera… and the Harpy. Excellent, more data to be retrieved.” A voice was released from the Hell-hound, the machine pushing itself back up to four legs, the dent in its head notable from where Shi kicked it.

“Creepy…” Shi complained with a shiver at the voice, and her brother and Harpy had to agree with her, the creator of the Hell-hounds was definitely creepy.

“How rude. Even Odysseus never called me creepy in our time together.” Even the way the creator of the Hell-hounds spoke was kind of creepy, but it was his interests that disturbed all the Chained that happened to hear his voice.

“Odysseus wasn’t conscious for most of it Lionel.” Harpy pointed out with an edge to her voice, clenching her fists in anger at the reminder of Aaron Hassan’s pain in the Ascension Chamber.

“Unfortunately… Lady Gilgamesh had a monopoly on his lucid attention span, and you don’t argue with your boss. I’m certain you three understand?” Doctor Lionel, the ‘prison doctor’ Odysseus met when he first entered the prison, and the creator of the Hell-hound model robots.

“You’re a disgusting human being.” Go pointed out with a glare, his rectangular, horizontal pupils narrowing slightly as he glared at the dog.

Goat eyes were creepy for some reason, and unfortunately Go had them as a hold out from his time as a goat-head.

“That’s a relative opinion, Goat Chimera. But enough of that, I really must thank all three of you.” The three Chained tensed, noticing something that they really should have moments ago…

There were loud, metallic thumping noises, the sound getting closer and closer.

“You’ve given my hounds enough time to join the hunt… will the foxes run? Or will they bite back?” Five other Hell-hounds took that moment to enter the library parking lot, the Chained grimacing at the realization that it was currently a two-on-one situation that wasn’t in their favour.

“I hope you die in pain.” Shi said in a very eerie fashion, shifting her weight to her back foot slightly, Doctor Lionel laughing for a bit at the generic threat to his well-being.

The laugh was cut short, letting the Chained know that their enemy wouldn’t be talking anymore, and the ‘hounds’ as Lionel called them rushed forward, their mechanical growls and barks echoing throughout the area.

“Harpy!” Go shouted, and Harpy angled herself above the middle Chimera sibling, Go jumping and grabbing onto one of her legs.

Swinging her leg, Harpy sent Go flying above the Hell-hounds, angling him towards the rearmost hound while Shi grinned below the two.

“Bring it on bitches!” Shi shouted with a growl, her pupils elongating into slits as she focused, the first hound almost upon her.

Go landed on the rear-most hound feet first, using the dog as a springboard as he flipped, landing behind the mechanical beast, the hound choosing to attack Go instead of charging at Shi.

Harpy used this chance to dive at the middle of the last three Hell-hounds, kicking on the ‘nose’ and driving its head into the ground, the back half of its body actually lifting off of the ground slightly as it did so, the two Hell-Hounds nearest to the point of impact stepped sideways, growling at Harpy.

Shi waited until the moment the lead Hell-hound, the one with a dent in its skull, was just in front of her before reaching out with her hands, grabbing its upper and lower jaws before squeezing, shouting in anger and exertion as she tipped backwards, the dog being lifted over Shi’s body in what was basically a judo throw.

The fight was on now, with Go fighting one, Shi fighting two, and Harpy fighting three of the Hell-hounds…

This wasn’t feasible long-term though, and Harpy said as much with a shout, jumping backwards with some help from her wings to give her distance when one of her Hell-hounds tried to clamp its jaws around her waist.

“We really need your brother right now, or Manticore! Heck, I’d even take Dryad or Cyclops!” Harpy shouted in annoyance, and Shi and Go could both understand her annoyance themselves.

Go was unfortunately weak by Chained standards, he was the only one of his siblings to possess a low-rank status, Shi and Roku were both considered middle-rank in regards to strength.

There were differences even in rank though, as Shi could defeat both of her siblings alone.

Even then, certain Chained had their specialties, Go for example was exceptionally good at learning new things, practical or theoretical and he had quite the mind for strategy.

The problem here was that none of the three had any major advantage against the giant mechanical dogs, Harpy’s aerial advantage was pointless because using that would cause her three Hell-hounds to go after Shi or Go instead of her…

Go was physically powerful enough to damage Hell-hounds but it would be difficult for him to damage one to the point of it being deactivated.

As for Shi, maybe she could deactivate a Hell-hound by herself, but against two at once? She’d struggle.

“I got that, if I could summon help I’d do that already!” Shi pointed out, punching a Hell-hound ‘paw’ that swiped at her, bouncing the arm away, but having to take a few steps back due to the recoil, moving her wrist in an attempt to dispel the pain sent through it.

“Noise! Make noise, destroy some property, and make the fight visible!” Go shouted, and Harpy smirked, understanding immediately what Go was getting at.

“So, be destructive?” Harpy asked, stretching her wings and shooting upwards into the air, angling towards the nearest building that wasn’t the library.

If she aimed at the library, Harpy knew that Go would get mad at her and eventually figure out a way to get back at her.

Landing against the side of the building, her momentum giving her a moment where it looked like she was sitting on the side of the building, Harpy pushed off the building, cracking the wall and breaking a portion of the roof, the noise echoing out as she shot towards one of the Hell-hounds.

“That’s something we can do!” Shi said, a smirk going on her face just as Harpy leapt into the air, running at one of her own opponents and sliding underneath its jaw, wrapping her arms around its neck and swinging.

The second of the two Hell-hounds only had a moment before its sibling was swung into it, the crash of metal on metal ringing out loudly as the two Hell-hounds tangled together.

“Damn it that hurts.” Exerting her strength to that point had a drawback for Shi, rolling her shoulder which had carried all the weight of that Hell-hound, even if it was just for a moment.

Like Typhon, Shi was strong… unlike Typhon, she didn’t have an extremely fast regeneration, Typhon could get away with tossing boulders because his muscles would almost instantaneously recover from their exertion, Shi had no such luck and always had to wait a while before doing something like that again.

It was because she lacked that regeneration that Shi was considered only middle-ranked as a Chained instead of high-rank, and why Harpy was considered stronger.

In explosive power, Shi could momentarily match the strongest Pantheon member, but long term that wasn’t feasible whereas Typhon could fight at full power for hours.

There was that time Typhon and the Hunter were chased from one Area into another while dodging and countering for basically a day or two…

Rather the crazy one in that story was the Hunter considering he was a base-line human, but that was not entirely relevant to the current situation.

“We’ll just have to hope that the bystanders spread the news around quickly…” Go whispered to himself, jumping over and onto the mechanical paw swung at him, launching a perfect high kick to the lens that the Hell-hound used as eyes.

Cracking the ‘eye’ of the Hell-hound, the robot slammed its paw down with Go tumbling off of it, reaching forward to try and bite Go to death only for the Goat Chimera to roll out of the way.

Watching these events from his control centre, Doctor Lionel frowned, sighing.

“That Goat Chimera is annoying… for being the weakest, he has a habit of making every single fight involving him difficult to observe.” At this point, Lionel was certain that Go was aiming for those cameras on purpose.

Even with the knowledge that a Hell-hound lost a lot of its ability to fight due to its vision, Go had to know that taking out the cameras would limit Lionel’s own observation on the Chained and their skills.

Go wasn’t the only one, Lionel recalled that there was always one or two among the enemy that aimed specifically for the ‘eyes’ of the Hell-hounds.

Back with the Chained, they were becoming more and more destructive, Harpy not caring if she hit the concrete or the dogs, Shi roaring as she attacked…

Go, Go wasn’t a loud person by nature, so he just settled for attacking whichever Hell-hound he was closest to, usually by going for their cameras for some reason.

Knowing her brother, Shi assumed it was because Go didn’t like the idea of being watched… he was a paranoid guy.

It was while fighting like this that they heard a car approaching instead of going away from the fight, and Harpy found herself smirking.

“The cavalry is here!” Harpy called out, watching as the… Jamaican flag patterned car pulled up on the outskirts of the fight, three doors opening and closing as she looked… and then frowned.

“Okay which doggy wants to play?” Roku asked with a smirk, running a hand through his hair before clapping at the Hell-hounds, his hands already starting to smoke slightly.

“I was not prepared for this. Not at all.” Cyclops said blandly even as he raised his arms in preparation for a fight, clearly knowing that even if he didn’t want to fight, he’d have to.

“Go team! I’ll be cheering for you!” And that was Dryad, running away instead of towards the fight.

“The cavalry sucks.” Shi said with a bland face, placing her hands on the top of the lead Hell-hound’s head, flipping herself to its back and landing perfectly on both feet, turning and grabbing its tail…

“Oh she’s spinning.” Cyclops pointed out, sliding away from Roku in a way that he hoped wasn’t blatant.

“That Italian plumber might sue you for using his finishing move!” Dryad shouted even as she watched from behind a house…

That reference took a few moments before Cyclops got it, but even then he couldn’t help but break out into a sprint as Shi released the Hell-hound to roughly Roku’s location.

“Sis, why?” Roku screamed as he ran away from the Hell-hound flying at him.

Doctor Lionel, in his command centre, palmed his face with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose… Ascended, or ‘Chained’ as they referred to themselves, were all eccentric.

Doctor Lionel continued watching the feed while drinking his coffee through a swirly straw, adamant that they were strange.

The new fighting group was Cyclops, Harpy, and the Chimera triplets against the six Hell-hounds, with Harpy fighting two and everyone else getting one to face.

Dryad was pitifully weak even for a Chained, and she didn’t have the Treant-bot to even slightly help out since she left her computer set up back on the float-bus.

“Burn, burn, burn!” Roku screamed, laughing manically while pressing his hands into the back of the Hell-hound, the robot trying to buck him off of it but being unable to.

Cyclops was not much of a fighter, but he had fought a few times at least… the giant robot dog wasn’t exactly subtle when it moved, it was easy for Cyclops to at least step out of the way of the slower attacks and raise his arms defensively for the more subtle attacks.

For example, when Cyclops’ left arm was stuck in the jaws of the Hell-hound, Cyclops winced at the pain but took the chance to punch the robot at the point where its lower jaw was connected to the rest of its skull, hitting that point until the Hell-hound’s lower jaw disconnected, incapable of biting anymore.

Cyclops wouldn’t be able to use his left arm for a while, but that ‘dog’ wasn’t biting anyone else again, especially after the thing surprised Cyclops by pretending to get ready to slap him with its giant metal paw and instead launched a chomp at Cyclops’ arm.

Seeing the Roku and Cyclops, Harpy could at least admit, they weren’t the best backup, but they were good.

“Too many cooks spoil the broth… since I can’t get accurate readings like this, I think I’ll have these hounds return.” Doctor Lionel informed the group through the head Hell-hound which was still busy melting under the tender care of Roku.

That sarcasm wasn’t that good, but it counts.

The other five Hell-hounds, which were in various states of disrepair, moved as one, turning away from their enemies and running away, the only one remaining being the first one that appeared.

It was at this moment that Manticore dropped into the library car lot, his wings, folding themselves against his back and his scorpion tail once more wrapping around his waist as he noted that the fight was in fact over.

“Ah, the Manticore… I suppose it is fitting that you should appear when I can no longer strike you.” Doctor Lionel pointed out as Roku stopped supplying flames to the Hell-hound, its joints already warped to the point that even moving around would be a struggle.

“Doctor. Always trying to kill us when we’re off guard, yet you haven’t succeeded once, have you?” Manticore pointed out in a smug tone, getting a click of the tongue in response from Lionel.

“No, I have not. I suppose that can be blamed at the lack of information, I was not aware that Baal could fry circuitry and he was just the first Ascended I encountered.” Doctor Lionel pointed out and despite his status as an enemy some of the combatants couldn’t help but feel sorry for Lionel.

Baal was terrifying as one of the few Top-ranked Chained, and he was especially powerful against other Cybernetic Chained.

That advantage extended to robots as well.

“That really was just a case of bad luck on your part doctor, though we’re thankful for that… still, I think you should stop with your attempts at small skirmishes. You couldn’t even succeed in attacking the weakest of the Chimera siblings.” Go didn’t even mind having his weakness pointed out like this.

He was weak, and Go knew and accepted that fact.

“I barely had a few moments alone with him, but C’est la vie I suppose. Though I won’t stop attacking… how else am I supposed to test the hounds and find improvements? Already I know that I’m going to be upgrading their armour to tungsten.” Manticore winced at that, knowing that to mean that the Doctor was going to be trying to make his robots immune to fire.

They already gained insulation due to their encounter with Baal, their programming got an upgrade after Dryad hacked into one and their ability to get up from any type of fall was added in after Jiang-shi fought one, now they’d be getting an upgrade to their heat resistance…

The Key had to make sure that Charon never faced the Hell-hounds otherwise the Hell-hounds would gain a resistance to extreme cold as well.

“You’re an enemy, I doubt we can truly stop you from taking such actions. Harpy, deactivate this thing.” Manticore called out to Harpy, the winged Chained nodding as she shot into the air.

“Ah, such a waste of resources…” Those were the last words uttered through this particular Hell-hound as Harpy’s foot collided with its now easily accessible neck, the entire head of the Hell-hound snapping off due to its extreme heat.

“I hate that guy… is everyone alright, to some extent?” Manticore asked, adjusting his question when no one spoke, and suddenly everyone nodded in agreement that yes, they were alright.

They could walk away at least after all.

“Good, we’re leaving since we’ve overstayed our welcome here in Area three. Dryad, send a message to Ars Goetia, let them know that there’s a Hell-hound here to dissect.” Dryad appeared mysteriously with a comical salute, her phone in her other hand as she texted with one hand…

Even one handed the speed at which she texted was abnormally fast.

“All of you, come along, we need to get to the float-bus. Chimera, you three can show Cyclops where to go, it’s the Eye’s headquarters.” Manticore said, jumping up and onto a roof before vanishing…

Looking at where Manticore just disappeared, the junior Pantheon members all slowly turned their heads to where the Mercedes S-Class sat waiting.

“…Did he not know we had a car?” Cyclops asked aloud, but no one was willing to answer his question.

When Manticore got to the float-bus, he would find all six of them waiting at the bus already, with Harpy having flown while Cyclops drove in the Mercedes along with the other land-bound Chained.

Manticore would be angry…

The junior Pantheon members would point out that it was Manticore’s problem that he was angry.

The group of seven left Area three like this, with Manticore swearing up a storm to make a sailor blush while the younger Chained laughed about it on the second level of the bus.

Next stop, Area seven.